By day, the festival lived on the slopes. Coronet Peak's Après Chalet and the Remarkables Stage ran sets from Wednesday through Saturday, turning the usual lift queues and lunch stops into an extension of the party, skis on, speakers on.

It is exactly the kind of week that calls for the best skiwear hire for a festival like this: warm and technical enough for a full day on the mountain, considered enough to stay in for the après set that follows without a costume change. Clients who booked their skiwear hire in Queenstown for Snow Machine did both in the same suit.

Once the lifts closed, the party moved into town. Across three nights, the Main Arena hosted a lineup that ran from Chet Faker and Hilltop Hoods to Nora En Pure, Example and Ninajirachi, alongside more than thirty local and international acts across the full week.

The wider program leaned into everything a ski town does best when it decides to also be a festival: a bungy launch party at the Kawarau Bridge, a Rees Street party, a Poof Doof drag brunch, and the now-famous Polar Bare, a mass, swimwear-only run down the slopes that has become one of the more talked-about mornings on the Queenstown calendar.

Several of the clients who rented with us for Queenstown this season used the same trip to cover Snow Machine, a ski suit or jacket for the daytime sets on the mountain, a statement piece from the après collection for the nights at the Main Arena.

It is the case for renting rather than owning, made in miniature: one wardrobe, two very different jobs, and nothing that needs to come home in a suitcase. Ask us for the best skiwear hire for a festival week like this one, and we will build the rotation around your dates rather than the other way round.